June 2009

We all know by now that Titan is fantastic… But did you know that other wonderful worlds are evolving around the Lord of the Rings (Kronos, Saturn, whatever you want to call the giant planet). Just a few days ago, my next favorite moon, Enceladus, gave us new cause for wonder. Enormous plumes of water

Four hundred years ago, Galileo utilized glasses, turned them into telescope and turn his eyes to the sky, since that time, human saw the universe with new perspective. Almost, forty years ago, still, using employ the glass, but in different way, known as television, human saw man landed on the moon, and since that time,

We rarely talk about the International Space Station and what kind of study or experiments are done over there. Most of us forgot that for more than 10 years, we have been investing money and time to build a gigantic station where several astronauts live and work.

Today is the day where a major decision will be made within our family household today. Close family and friends will know that my sister who is six years my junior was involved in a serious road accident 5 years ago and over the coming days and possibly months we will have some tough decisions

Hello,
In one of my first posts I described the group of students who were working with me. Since the end of the semester (beginning of June) my group has changed considerably. I am going to give you an update since I think it is important to acknowledge my students without whom my research could not be done.

A brief update about my previous post into which I described the demise of the Kayuga mission. The crash on the lunar surface was indeed recorded by the High Definition TV and can be seen on the JAXA channel in youtube.<!–more–> click on the following image to start the movie and enjoy the ride… Unfortunately

Frank Low, a pioneer on infrared astronomer who was involved in the 102 cm balloon-borne far infrared telescope that formed the basis for my PhD thesis, died on June 11. The NY Times had a nice obituary on June 21. The low temperature bolometers pioneered by Low are employed on both Herschel and Planck.

Whilst analysing some images in various wavelengths for the peculiar galaxy ARP 155 I found something even stranger when low and behold on retreiving an archived image Mickey Mouse should appear. He has eyes and everything! And he’s sooo cute! and I promise this is real and is not a photoshop trick. Here’s a snapshot

Another day, another association found, I woke up at 2am this morning and after realiasing that I had left my computer on processing lots of data and in the process nearly blowing it up by letting it over heat, (poor laptop) I realised I had an email from a colleague who suggested I take a